A TEN YEARS HAIL CLIMATOLOGY BASED ON ESWD HAIL REPORTS IN ROMANIA, 2007-2016

ABSTRACT: The present work analyse dstatistically representative number of severe convective events reported for ESWD (European Severe Weather Database) which caused hail in Romania during 2007-2016. We used only data from QC1 (report confirmed) level of credibility. QC1 are reports confirmed by reliable sources by ESSL (European Severe Storm Laboratory) Quality Control Division and National Meteorological Institutes. The development of social media and an increasing number of people interested in severe weather in the recent years significantly raised the number of reports, too (often accompanied by a photograph of the event). This database does not include all of the hail reports, but it is the best existing source for the Romanian territory. For the 2007-2016 period, 470 events with QC1 credibility were reported for ESWD. A spatial-temporal analysis of ESWD reports has been carried out. During the ten years, a high density of reporting has been observed in north-east, south-east and north-western Romania.. This is a consequence of the number of volunteers reporting extreme weather events and local climatic conditions. A greater number of hail days can be noted in 2008, 2009 and 2010, a decline in 2011 and 2012, and during 2013-2016, 10 to 12 of hail days per year were actually recorded.